As you may have heard, there’s a new Ghostbusters movie coming out today, which of course means there’s also plenty of talk going around about the original 1984 movie. A good chunk of that talk is coming from Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, who discussed the first film’s production with the Hollywood Reporter. Ivan gets into a lot of details, but some of the most interesting tidbits have to do with the film’s casting process.
For instance, did you know a very young Julia Roberts tried out for the movie? Of course, Sigourney Weaver ended up getting the part, which she snagged in a rather unconventional way:
“The biggest cast member to find was the part of Dana Barrett, and a number of people came in. Julia Roberts was one of the first. I thought she was spectacular and I turned to my casting director, saying, ‘She’s going to be a big star.’ And then Sigourney Weaver walked in.
“She said, ‘You know, I really think that Dana Barrett should be possessed. She should be like that dog on the roof.’ And then she got on all fours on my coffee table, howling like a dog! Right after she left my office, I called Harold Ramis and said, ‘Harold, Sigourney Weaver just started howling like a dog in my office. She said that she should get possessed by the dog and turn into a dog,’ and I thought, ‘Damn, that’s a really good idea.’ That got included in the script. She was barely out of my office and we were writing it already.”
In another interesting casting tidbit, Reitman says John Candy was the original choice for the Louis Tully role, but he wanted to play him as German and have two German Shepherds. Ultimately, he passed and Rick Moranis stepped in for his SCTV cast mate.
There are tons of other fun factoids in the Reitman interview, so I suggest you check it out by clicking below.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
